Rob Gray’s How We Learn to Move is sure to become the go-to resource for any coach interested in the Ecological Dynamics approach to skill acquisition.
The book is sub-titled “A revolution in the way we coach & practice sports skills”, and this is no exaggeration.
A quite brilliant, inspirational read, for anyone who has ever wondered if “learning by rote” and “repetition, repetition, repetition” were the only way to develop sport skills, this book provides an answer.
(more…)I posted a couple of pieces last week about the process of coaching — how coaching is, perhaps, a bit like gardening. But I didn’t consider the “product” of sports coaching — for all of the tilling and watering (and weeding), what actually comes out the other end?
Or what it is that coaches actually do when they coach.
If I write “I am a cricket coach”, what am I claiming?
Professional status? That I am qualified to coach?
I have several certificates that say I am.
Or that I belong to a body of professional cricket coaches?
I pay my subs, at least.
That I enjoy coaching?
I do…maybe not as much as I used to, but it was great to get back into school in June.
But what do (cricket) coaches actually do? What is coaching?
(more…)Really interesting post from @davidhinchliffe on how he uses the constraints-led approach in his own coaching practice.
I was particularly taken with the line “instead of a fault-fixer, think of yourself as a problem-setter…” Or, from an ecological dynamics/constraints-led approach viewpoint, coach as “environmental designer”, perhaps?
Or, maybe, gardener?
(more…)
The Teesra 